#218

Chapter 9.

The beginning of all this vicious cycle. The origin of all shackles. The culprit of all incidents.

Kim Sung-hwan.

He was dead.

In a grotesque state, wearing a helmet over his filthy naked body, soiled with feces and urine.

It was a truly pathetic death for a man who had held the lives of many people in his hands for so long.

* * *

The the man and Maria met. Separated by a partition, the two, once a boy and a girl, wept endlessly.

Maria herself informed the man of Kim Sung-hwan’s death.

Seon-jae would never forget the expression on the Man’s face at that moment.

Immediately after Maria left, the man abandoned the name Yoon Ki-beom. He retracted his confession and clearly stated his true identity to the detectives and prosecutor in charge, starting with Park Soo-nam, the lawyer. For the first time since the day he received Ji-hye from Kim Sung-hwan, the man audibly spoke the name ‘Shim Kang-woo’ from his own lips.

Maria stayed at the Sojak Building, at Mr. Kim’s residence. It was under the guise of surveillance and protection. The General Manager, who had to take care of the unwed mothers, visited Maria once a day. Every time she left, Maria wanted to return to the facility as well. She said she couldn’t abandon the unwed mothers in the shelter, as they were like sisters, nor could she abandon the children they had given birth to.

However, knowing why she had to stay by Seon-jae’s side, she didn’t act recklessly. Whether she was originally like that, or whether Kim Sung-hwan had changed her, Maria was an excessively docile woman.

She decided to have the baby aborted. It was Maria’s eleventh pregnancy. Maria had been pregnant a total of eleven times, giving birth to seven of them. From the time she was a sixteen-year-old girl until she was thirty-one, she repeated pregnancy and childbirth for twelve years, excluding the three years Kim Sung-hwan was in prison. That was Maria’s life.

The fact that she had aborted the the child was to be kept secret until the day Choi In-ho no longer needed it.

Kim Sung-hwan’s wife, Kang Eun-jeong, ignored Seon-jae’s advice and secretly reported her Husband, Lee Sang-hoon, as missing. Afraid that he would expose her Husband’s past, she didn’t dare touch Lee Seon-jae, and instead went after Choi In-ho and Kim Na-yeon. She seemed to believe that they, who had been in the same boat as her Husband, would naturally be on her side. But her hopes were dashed spectacularly.

Choi In-ho and Kim Na-yeon honestly told the police about their whereabouts on the day Kim Sung-hwan disappeared. That is, they had gone to the 15th floor of the Sojak Building, ‘World Trading,’ to meet the CEO for investment consultation. They added that the consultation wasn’t great, and it smelled fishy, so they just returned.

It was only natural that the police investigating the whereabouts of the missing Lee Sang-hoon visited the Sojak Building. Conveniently, the CEO of World Trading was on the run after committing fraud, and the CCTV inside the building was under repair.

Fortunately, only the scene of Kim Sung-hwan going up to the 15th floor wearing a motorcycle helmet was properly recorded. In addition, the fact that his car was parked on the road opposite the Sojak Building was confirmed through CCTV in another building.

When the police asked Kang Eun-jeong if the man in the CCTV was her Husband, she gave an ambiguous answer.

The man who secretly entered someone else’s underground parking lot and even rode the elevator wearing a motorcycle helmet in the middle of summer looked suspicious to anyone. If it looked that way to his wife, how much more so to the police?

Furthermore, Kang Eun-jeong couldn’t answer why her Husband’s car was parked opposite the Sojak Building on that particular day.

The police, who visited Choi In-ho again, received an unexpected answer from him: ‘That guy has been bothering me lately. He needed money because he was scammed out of his investment.’ That was also what Seon-jae had told him to say. Choi In-ho had no idea that Kim Sung-hwan had money problems.

The car Kim Sung-hwan was driving was driven by Mr. Kim, who was of similar build to Kim Sung-hwan, the day after he broke into the Sojak Building, exited the Seoul tollgate, passed the Cheonan junction, entered the national highway, and then his whereabouts became unknown.

Just in time, the police received a tip about Kim Sung-hwan. It was a tip that Kim Sung-hwan was living by stealing the identity of the missing Lee Sang-hoon, along with testimonies from Lee Sang-hoon’s labor movement comrades from 17 years ago. Seon-jae took care to make it seem as if Kim Sung-hwan had fled not because he was missing, but because he was in danger of having his identity exposed.

In any case, thanks to Kim Sung-hwan’s bizarre behavior and the tip, Kang Eun-jeong was in trouble instead. This was because the police were now asking her in detail about her Husband’s past.

Rumors quickly spread throughout the apartment complex that detectives from the violent crimes unit had visited. The the child were uncomfortable with the detectives who came almost every day, and before they knew it, they had to hear absurd rumors from their neighborhood friends, such as, ‘I heard your dad’s a murderer?’

In addition, the fact that none of Lee Sang-hoon’s fingerprints were found in the fingerprints collected from Kang Eun-jeong’s house also exacerbated the problem. The information voluntarily provided to find the missing person actually proved that her Husband was not Lee Sang-hoon.

Later, the fingerprints collected from Kang Eun-jeong’s house matched the fingerprints on the murder weapon that killed the real Yoon Ki-beom, making her even more difficult.

The missing person report, which she had filed only to find her Husband, had spread from identity theft to murder. The result of Kang Eun-jeong’s rash judgment, who had trusted her Husband too much, was the worst.

Kang Eun-jeong, who belatedly realized her mistake, looked for Lee Seon-jae again, but the number was out of service. Since all she knew was his name and face, it was not easy for an ordinary teacher to find someone in an ordinary way. Lee Seon-jae had disappeared, but that didn’t mean the threat had disappeared as well.

One morning, Kang Eun-jeong found a Polaroid photo attached to her front door. It was a Polaroid photo of the staff list of the Galilla orphanage, where her Husband was the vice director. Kang Eun-jeong hurriedly removed the photo and decided to move after seeing the warning written on the back.

She paid dearly for ignoring her Husband’s sins.

Lee Seok-doo, after kidnapping Detective Oh Dae-Ho, had his hands and feet tied instead. He tried to catch Lee Seon-jae, but he was the one who got trapped.

It was because he had underestimated the incumbent prosecutor and the police too much. It was because he had acted recklessly even though he knew that there were not only his own lines in the upper echelons of the prosecution and police. As a result, even among the prosecutors and police who were guarding Lee Seok-doo, there was constant noise as they argued back and forth, and other lines who regarded that line as an eyesore attacked them, thinking this was their chance.

In particular, the police’s counterattack was great. Prosecutor Baek Gyu-ri’s trick played a part in this.

Only Prosecutor Jeong Jae-jin and the two detectives who worked with him knew that Detective Oh Dae-Ho had gone to Lee Seok-doo on his own, and only Prosecutor Jeong Jae-jin knew the real reason. So Prosecutor Baek Gyu-ri transformed Detective Oh Dae-Ho from a traitor into a hero.

In other words, Detective Oh, under the direction of Prosecutor Jeong Jae-jin, secretly volunteered to play the role of a corrupt detective, and things went wrong because he witnessed the misconduct of his junior, Park Dong-Hee. He was kidnapped while secretly trying to meet the person involved in an attempt to save his junior.

The detectives, who had already witnessed their colleague being kidnapped in front of their eyes, were greatly outraged by Prosecutor Baek Gyu-ri’s press conference. Saying that they could no longer condone the actions of a mere gangster, all the police in the country were burning with anger.

The police targeted Il-gwang Financial and Il-gwang’s subsidiaries, warehouses, logistics centers, as well as companies, organized crime groups, and private investigation agencies that had close relationships with Il-gwang. They visited them for no reason, or by creating plausible reasons, and interfered with their business and harassed them. They abused arrest warrants for minor charges.

Prosecutor Baek Gyu-ri and other prosecutors who shared her views approved and requested all of those abused arrest warrants to the court without exception. Of course, more than half of them were dismissed, but that alone was enough to be effective. While the substantive examination of the arrest warrant was in progress, they had to hire a lawyer and submit explanatory data to avoid arrest.

It wouldn’t be satisfying if it ended there. The police and prosecutors relentlessly created reasons and re-requested arrest warrants. It must have been crazy from the perspective of those who were being attacked.

That’s right, who told them to mess with the police? And that too, by mere gangster bastards without fear.

It was the price for underestimating the public authority.

Even if he asked Lee Seok-doo for help, there was no answer. Lee Seok-doo was also busy dealing with the arrest warrants and summons issued to him.

Fortunately, the arrest warrant for the murder case 10 years ago was dismissed, but Prosecutor Baek Gyu-ri and the detectives in charge did not give up. The judge’s ‘lack of facts of the crime’ that dismissed the arrest warrant was nothing more than an excuse, so they prepared rebuttal data and requested the arrest warrant again.

In addition, Detective Park Dong-Hee kept mentioning Lee Seok-doo’s name in the case of Prosecutor Jeong Jae-jin’s murder, so Lee Seok-doo had to receive summons from the prosecution several times. Since it was a case where an incumbent auditor was stabbed with a knife, even the prosecutors in Lee Seok-doo’s line could not stop it this time. They could only watch while protecting themselves.

As if that wasn’t enough, the drug case involving his son Lee Hyun-joon broke out.

It wasn’t easy to take care of himself, and even his son was caught, so Lee Seok-doo couldn’t hear the complaints of the subordinates.

To make matters worse, Prosecutor Jeong Jae-jin’s condition improved to the point where he was transferred from the intensive care unit to a general ward. As a result, the situation became even busier. The moment Jeong Jae-jin returned, an arrest warrant would be requested on charges of tax evasion and bribery, so he had to be fully prepared.

Prosecutor Baek Gyu-ri compared Lee Seon-jae to a bedbug. In other words, she was gloating that Lee Seok-doo was about to burn down his house to catch a bedbug.

Many things were happening simultaneously around Seon-jae after the man was imprisoned. But Seon-jae’s only concern was the Man. He was only focused on proving the Man’s innocence.

If you are sincere, heaven will be moved, and Seon-jae’s tearful efforts finally paid off.

“Mister! We’re going to be late, let’s go!”

The the child shouted.

Seon-jae, who was trimming his hair, said, ‘I’m done,’ but his hand still wouldn’t leave his hair. For some reason, his style didn’t come out well today. His face also seemed a little swollen, and his eyes looked sharper. He smiled at the mirror, but even that seemed like a forced smile.

Shit. What’s wrong with my face.

For the first time in his life, Seon-jae didn’t like his face.

“Ugh, seriously. What kind of the man stands in front of the mirror for an hour?”

The the child crossed his arms and sighed deeply.

“An hour? I only stood there for 10 minutes. Let’s go.”

The two bickered and got into Seon-jae’s car.

After the man retracted his confession, a lengthy reinvestigation began. The the man went back and forth between the police station and the prosecutor’s office once a day, undergoing a reinvestigation process accompanied by all sorts of speculation and threats.

The detectives were also out of their minds. As soon as the man retracted his confession, a doctor appeared as if he had been waiting, claiming to have the real Yoon Ki-beom’s DNA. According to the doctor, the real Yoon Ki-beom died 12 years ago, and the Yoon Ki-beom they were investigating was another person named ‘Shim Kang-woo.’ The detectives, who were already suffering from the suspect who claimed to be Shim Kang-woo, deliberately ignored the doctor’s testimony. They ignored it, but then a tip came in saying that they knew where the real Yoon Ki-beom was buried.

The detectives and prosecutors in charge, who were composed of Lee Seok-doo’s line, tried to bury the newly received testimony and tip as much as possible, but Park Soo-nam, the lawyer, did not stand still. The same was true of Doctor Choi In-ho. The two, who had nothing to regret when it came to connections, directly contacted broadcasting stations and newspapers and leaked interesting stories about this unusual Kim Cheol-soo missing death case. It was a story that anyone would find tempting, so even a one-hour current affairs program showed great interest.

The interviews with the successful incumbent lawyer from a high-ranking prosecutor’s office and the incumbent obstetrician and gynecologist, who was rumored to be a famous doctor, were short but were reported on public news and major newspapers. Afterwards, additional reports followed, implying that prosecutors and police were turning innocent citizens into criminals.

The power of the media was great. As the current affairs program PDs and reporters began to visit the prosecutor’s office and police station, various civic groups and courageous citizens who saw the news and articles actively protested by phone.

It goes without saying that the higher-ups, displeased, berated their subordinates, and a prosecutor-turned-congressman, conscious of votes, personally stood before the cameras, urging a thorough and impartial investigation, thus pressuring the prosecution and the police.

As a result, the detectives in charge, branded as incompetent, were all replaced, and the case was reinvestigated from the beginning.

The replaced detectives first compared and analyzed the blood type and DNA found on the murder weapon used to kill Kim Cheol-soo, based on the doctor’s claim that it was the real Yoon Ki-beom’s DNA. Simultaneously, they dug up the ancestral burial ground mentioned in the tip-off to find Yoon Ki-beom’s body.

The detectives anticipated a difficult struggle with the owner of the burial ground to excavate it, but the issue was resolved surprisingly easily. It was called an ancestral burial ground, but there were only two graves, those of Lee Sang-hoon’s grandparents. It seemed the grandfather, who had lost his only son, had belatedly purchased the mountain to use as a burial site for himself and his wife.

In any case, after digging up the two graves and the surrounding land for three days, the police discovered five bodies, along with several blood-stained tools.

Except for the two bodies buried normally in the ground, the remaining three were unidentified. Yoon Ki-beom’s body was among those unidentified corpses. The bodies and what appeared to be the murder weapons were transferred to the National Forensic Service. Since teeth remained in the skeletal remains, dental comparison was conducted first. In Yoon Ki-beom’s case, his dental records from his time at the orphanage were used as reference.

A detailed examination of the blood-stained pickaxes and knives revealed the fingerprints of Na Jin-soo and Yoon Hyuk-beom on the handles of the murder weapons. Kim Sung-hwan’s, of course, were also found. Furthermore, credible evidence emerged that the blood on the knife blades, believed to belong to the victims, belonged to one of the perpetrators who killed Kim Cheol-soo.

The Kim Cheol-soo missing person kidnapping murder case was expanded into a serial murder case, and a special investigation headquarters was soon established at the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency.

The the man was acquitted just before his first trial. It had been two months since the man was imprisoned. Of course, the man still had issues to clarify, such as identity theft and forgery of official documents, but at least he would not be investigated as a murderer.

And today, September 29th, was the day the man was released.

Seon-jae went to the Suwon Detention Center with the the child to pick up the Man.

Throughout the journey to the detention center, the the child was engrossed in idol talk. She chattered about who was the most popular these days and which songs were the most popular.

Seon-jae knew few of the names and just added vague interjections.

“But you know a lot? You didn’t know anything before.”

“So-jin is really into that stuff. I’ve been with her all the time, so I learned everything.”

The the child said casually.

“Really? I thought So-jin only studied. That’s unexpected.”

“The reason she studies is all because of those oppas.”

“What does that mean?”

“You have to do well in school to get a job at a broadcasting station. Her goal is to become a PD for Music Bank or Inkigayo.”

“What’s that?”

“Music shows. Music Bank and Inkigayo.”

Everything was abbreviated.

“So-jin is already studying with the goal of getting a job. She’s amazing.”

Seon-jae was honestly a little surprised. He didn’t know if kids these days were like that, or if it was like that in his time.

“Ji-hye, is being a police officer still your dream?”

“Yes! I’m going to be the best fighter cop ever.”

The the child answered energetically.

“Yeah. I don’t know about anything else, but I think you can do that.”

The the child grinned at Seon-jae’s answer, then turned serious, saying, “That’s an insult, isn’t it?”

“It’s a compliment. Why are you twisting it? Do you have an inferiority complex?”

Seon-jae teased.

“Adults shouldn’t tease kids. Mister, you’re the one who seems to have an inferiority complex!”

The the child sulked.

Seon-jae chuckled, wondering if she even knew what “inferiority complex” meant.

But listening to her, it seemed like the the child was right.

Seon-jae didn’t have a childhood like the the child’s. He had no friends, no close relatives or siblings, and he didn’t even go to school often. He had never watched TV, and his only books were ledgers. And dreams…

But So-jin, who was only in middle school, was already studying hard to become a broadcasting station PD, and the the child, though she wasn’t good at studying, confidently said that her dream was to become a strong police officer.

How envious.

Seon-jae reached out and stroked the the child’s head.

“Sorry. I’m narrow-minded.”

“Huh? What’s going on? You’re actually apologizing to me?”

The the child looked up with a puzzled expression. She sucked on her cola straw.

Seon-jae just smiled. He sucked on his black drink like the the child.

The weather was very nice. The daytime temperature was high for late September, and the clouds floated pleasantly in the blue sky.

Seon-jae held the tofu, and the the child held the Let’s Be canned coffee that the man liked, waiting for the man to come out.

The Man, who had been wearing a hospital gown when he was arrested, fortunately came out of the detention center wearing a shirt and suit pants he had received through his lawyer.

The the child ran to the man and hugged him tightly. The the man hugged the the child and lifted her into the air, embracing her once more.

Seon-jae also desperately wanted to hug the Man, but he yielded this time to the the child, who hadn’t seen her Father for nearly three months.

“Ki-beom, here.”

Seon-jae held the tofu to the Man’s mouth.

The the man bit off a piece of tofu while holding the the child.

“It’s delicious.”

The the man smiled.

“It’s handmade. I chose it specially.”

Seon-jae boasted.

The the child whined, “Mister, me too,” wanting to eat as well, but he pretended not to hear.

“Just eat half. I’ll eat the rest.”

Seon-jae looked at the the child with a firm expression, then brought the tofu back to the Man’s mouth. Seon-jae munched on the remaining tofu that the man had bitten a few times. He ate it more deliciously than the Man, as if he were the one being released.

“Wow, this is really savory.”

He exclaimed.

Then the the child glared and said, “Greedy.” Her lips twitched.

“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?”

Seon-jae asked the Man, ignoring the the child.

Seon-jae fiddled with his hair and stroked his face for no reason. He had spent an hour on it, but he was bothered by his hairstyle, which he didn’t like, and his face, which looked ugly today. He wanted to look as pretty as possible. Shit. He grumbled inwardly.

“No. Compared to what Tae-heun has gone through… I just stayed still.”

The the man felt sorry. He was sincerely grateful.

“I didn’t go through anything. Ki-beom, you’re the one who’s been through a lot.”

The two were no longer Ki-beom or Tae-heun, but they still called each other that. They belatedly realized and apologized to each other.

“Let’s fix it slowly. There’s no rush.”

Seon-jae said, looking at the the child, who knew nothing.

The Man’s eyes welled up.

He looked down at the the child and tightened his arms around her.

There was much to be done for the man to become Shim Kang-woo from Yoon Ki-beom. He could revive Shim Kang-woo’s family register, but to do so, he would have to submit and prove many documents. He would also have to undergo a physical examination for military enlistment again.

There was also the immediate problem of the house in Dongjam-ri. The house was Yoon Ki-beom’s property, so the man could no longer live there as if it were his own. Knowing who the owner was, going there now would be a kind of illegal occupation. Moreover, the house was in danger of being taken over due to the debts in Yoon Ki-beom’s name.

He had to transfer the debt to Shim Kang-woo’s name or pay it off as soon as possible. Well, Seon-jae was an expert in matters related to property and debt, so the man didn’t have to worry about that, but the family register issue was quite complicated. Especially the the child was the biggest headache.

“The lawyer didn’t come?”

The the man asked as they walked to the car.

“He has a trial. We’re going to have a drink together after it’s over, so you can see him then.”

The the man was still carrying the the child. The the child, uncharacteristically, was acting spoiled and hugging the Man’s neck tightly. Not to be outdone, Seon-jae wrapped his arms around the Man’s waist.

For the first time in a long time, the whole family was together.

The Man, the the child, and Seon-jae.

It was perfect.

The weather, the air, and the taste of the tofu.

219 – Chapter Title Without Number